Dar es Salaam. The government of Denmark announced on Friday that it will be closing its embassy in Tanzania’s commercial capital of Dar es Salaam in 2024 thanks to the ongoing restructuring of Danish foreign service that aims at delivering on the government’s priorities.

The Dar embassy will be closed together with the Danish embassy in Argentina, the country’s Consulate General in Chongqing, China and Trade Mission in Barcelona, Spain.

Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Jeppe Kofod said in a statement on Friday that the reorganisation currently underway in the Scandinavian country is designed to help the Danish government achieves “the biggest possible difference” through its foreign services.

“My first priority as Minister of Foreign Affairs is to ensure the security and safety of the Danish people in a world where democracy, human rights, and our values are coming under increasing pressure,” said Mr Kofod in the statement.

According to Mr Kofod, Denmark will in future present a new foreign and security policy strategy that will include the restructuring of the country’s reorganised relations with other blocks such as the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations (UN), and the Arctic and Africa.

Over the past fifty years of Danish-Tanzania relations, the East African nation has received more Danish development assistance than any other country, amounting to more than 14 billion DKK, which is an equivalent of over Sh5 trillion.

Tanzania was the first African country with which Denmark initiated a development assistance partnership in 1963 shortly after the Tanzanian Mainland, then known as Tanganyika, became independent.

This was just one year after the Danish Parliament, known in Danish as Folketinget, passed the first Danish law on international development cooperation and shortly after the Tanzanian Mainland, called Tanganyika, became independent.